1. Technical Field
This application relates to software installation and, in particular, to software upgrades.
2. Related Art
Software programs can be large and complex. Such software programs may be difficult and time-consuming to install and/or upgrade. Enterprise business applications have been known to take months to upgrade. In some examples, users may alter the way they use a software program after an upgrade due to changes in the software program introduced in the upgrade. Additionally, software programs may be modified or customized prior to an upgrade. An upgrade may cause one or more modifications to fail or work improperly. Consequently, the impact of an upgrade of a software program may be of interest in order to plan for an upgrade of the software program in a production system.
In order to determine the impact of an upgrade of a software program, a test system may be used. A test system may include a copy of the software program currently in use in a production system. The copy of the software program may then be upgraded without disrupting users of the production system. The impact of the upgrade may then be analyzed in the test system. It may be more efficient, however, to analyze the impact of a software upgrade without having to perform an upgrade either on the operational system or the test system.